Looks like whenever yao can get the ball comfortably, the offense is much easier. Yesterday Darko tried to front yao every time, even at the high post. In the Bobcats game during the break, their coach was demanding Okfur to front yao. By far that's the only and best way to contain yao. Historically yao struggles most with this kind of defense, especially with Phenoix,Utar,Grizzlies. Yao always have great games with Lakers, because Phil don't front/double him as often. In my opinion our best offence is not Yao OR Tmac. It's Yao AND Tmac. While Tmac has no problem getting the ball when needed, the opposing team can always deny the ball from yao in clutch time if they really want to do that. As much as I like Yao and the Rockets and see them as a contender, I strongly suspect they can be the champ this year. But if yao can always get the ball comfortably and he can somehow drive by the defender a bit(He doesn't try that or he's not good at it, so the defender can stay as close as they like), we'll have a real chance.
He has to demand his space and he has to do a better job at pinning his man behind his back. He is too horizontal when he tries to establish position, he needs to root his lower body a little bit and get a lower base gravity. This way they can't go around him which weak darko and gasol were doing. Yao must simply get lower when he fights for position when he does this they will get fouls called because it will only be obvious. But the league knows right now that once yao get position there isn't anything at all that they can do to stop him. Yao has become like Kareem down there on those low or high blocks
The problem isn't just fronting. If Yao is simply fronted with no backside help, the passer can just throw a lob. It is when backside help comes consistently (like yesterday), which makes it essentially a double off the ball, then it's a problem. If that happens usually McGrady is isolated on his defender with no help, and that's what happened yesterday. There will also be open shooters, but yesterday we couldn't hit our shots. Usually if McGrady is going well the defense changes to guard McGrady's drive rather than overplay Yao's post-up. This ended up happening by the 4th quarter yesterday but by then we had completely abandoned Yao.
I think this problem is not as big as people make it out to be... Yao does struggle against these fronting defense, but for every game he struggles agaisnt I see others where he averages like over 25 ppg and 13 rebs. 1) PnR - Let Yao be the person setting the Pick 2) Attack the basket, when he is being fronted on the high post. 3) Make Yao get deeper in the post, only thing the players have to throw him the ball as soon as possible and not let defense react, let him use a stutter step. 4) More ball movement, don't wait for him to get open just keep the ball moving until he either gets open or if the paint gets cleared.
Darko is as big n strong as Yao pretty much (longer arms makes up the height difference) and with decent footspeed, plus he plays a bit dirty. So the fact he guarded YAO well is totally expected. I wouldnt worry about it since there is one Darko in the league.
Those lobs couldn't have been made and it wasn't the shooters on the perimeter it was chuck hayes man gasol cheating with tha double team help. So you had two 7 footers on yao at one time. You had darko fronting him and gasol ready to deflect or get into the way of that lob. You need a midrange guy in there to make the other guy have to defend some one.
He had 2 guys on him. When darko was fronting yao you had gasol who had the luxury to leave his man to help on that front. Yao had two 7 footers on him.
It's matchups like this that make you wish Scola would come around quicker. His unfamiliarity with NBA rules is making him way too tentative -- he has to be more active in cutting, getting to open spots and setting screens in situations like that where his man cheats to help out on Yao. Chuck is great at cutting to the basket, but with three 7 footers around the paint area it's difficult to get him the ball when he gets there, and he can't make defenses pay from anything more than 10 feet out.
The difference is other teams are to small to help on those fronts while memphis had the right pieces mathup wise to come in with a calculated game plan to disrupt yao with the junk defense. They are saying they can't stop Yao so they put two 7.0 footers on him and the refs allow gasol 2 committ defensive 3 seconds for 48 minutes. There wasn't one time where they called defensive 3 seconds if they make that call the fronting double team junk zone trap cannot happen.
Yao should play his playmaker role more to "get other players involved". I'd like Yao's 6 assists with 6 TO more than 1 assist, 1TO.
You can't make any plays if you don't know how to get the basketball and your team doesn't know how to get it you. He couldn't even get the basketball and the only time he did was 20 feet out beyond the freaking perimeter.
it comes down to execution....when he's fronted the entry passer needs to pass it to the high post guy (usually Hayes), who then should make a touch pass to Yao who by then has pinned his man outside the lane...easy dunk for Yao. Problem is the team has never committed to this and I don't know why....it's always available. For all I've heard of Hayes and Scola being "great" interior passers...I've seen nothing from them.
certain guys have a knack for getting Yao the ball...like Bonzi and TMac (when he feels like it). Others (pretty much everyone else on the team) suck at it.
It's available but hayes doesn't have confidence with this type of entry and when they swing the basketball like this Yao has position but he doesn't catch the rock on the move too good. He needs to establish early position,root his man and get a lower gravity hold to that position. He must refuse to be fronted.
darko had the game of his life last night man. had close to a career night for PTS and garbage he was just throwing up there was clanging in for him. that said with about 8 minutes left yao was on the verge of fouling him out, he was getting tired and we got 2 quick fouls on him in about a minute. but of course instead of pounding into yao and finishing him off, our crack masonry team proceeded to build a brick wall around Fedex Arena. The things that have largely limited yao in the past versus fronting defenses has been A)foul trouble B)stamina. So far this year yao looks pretty good with A and Adelman's subs and less banging on the post seems to have benefited B. Our frigging masonry team just isn't looking enough to yao in the 4th quarter. daddycool yer right they did have gasol come over to help on yao but last night wasn't about yao being shut down. yao had his way with memphis with about 16 points in the 3rd quarter and 7-12 shooting (most of those misses in the 1st half). there was just that stretch in the 4th quarter when memphis had its run with Tmac on the bench and we didn't even look to post Yao before launching outside shots with 7-9 minutes left and a 10 point lead, we can afford to LOOK for yao before we just start launching 3s. Yao really wasn't having all that much trouble with Darko, in fact if we'd gotten yao 15 FGA last night we'd probably have won
I agree when t-mac was on the bench james,wells and whoever had no idea what the game plan was which should have been obviuos and that would mean get Yao the basketball.
